The results of the Second Shandong Province Outstanding Music Theory and Composition Research Awards were officially announced on 20 April 2026. Faculty members and students from the Doctoral Program in Arts (Music Studies) of the Faculty of Innovation and Design, together with members of the Macau Urban Music Research Center at City University of Macau, achieved remarkable success, receiving multiple awards that highlight their solid academic foundation and sustained cultural contributions.

In this evaluation, doctoral research projects supervised by Professor Dai Dingcheng, Head of the Doctoral Program in Arts (Music Studies) and Director of the Macau Urban Music Research Center, received high recognition. A co-authored paper by Zhang Yaqin (Class of 2025) and Gao Yang (Class of 2024), entitled "Participatory Soundscape and Spatial Negotiation of the Macau Lusophonia Carnival", was awarded the Second Prize in the Student Category. Meanwhile, Yuan Mengmeng (Class of 2025) received a Third Prize for "Beyond Cross-Boundary Expansion: Reconstructing Genre Identity and Forming New Traditions in the Cantonese Opera Film White Snake Legend: Love", and Li Yiping (Class of 2025) also won a Third Prize for "From 'Hearing Sounds' to 'Interpreting Meaning': Cognitive Mechanisms and Interpretive Pathways in Cross-Cultural Music Listening". In addition, Dr. Zhang Mengrui, a graduate of the Class of 2022 of the doctoral program and currently a faculty member at Shandong University of Technology, received an Excellence Award in the Teacher Category for her study "The Influence of Qi–Lu Music Culture during the Qin and Han Dynasties on the National Music System". This achievement demonstrates the program's continuity in talent cultivation and its expanding academic impact.

Organized by the Shandong Musicians Association, this high-level national competition attracted 328 submissions in music theory and composition studies from universities and research institutions across China. Awards in the student category included three First Prizes, six Second Prizes, nine Third Prizes, and six Excellence Awards.

Rooted in Macau's unique position as a crossroads of Chinese and Western cultures, the Doctoral Program in Arts (Music Studies) of the Faculty of Innovation and Design focuses on frontier fields such as urban music research, and has gradually developed a training model that integrates theoretical scholarship with practical exploration. The awards not only reflect the overall quality of the program's teaching, but also demonstrate the positive outcomes achieved in music research, cultural heritage preservation, and the cultivation of young scholars under the strong support of the University and the Faculty.